


Rainy Day Tales

by lost_spook



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Press Gang
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-04
Updated: 2011-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-15 09:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Assuming Colin is to blame for the surreal is usually the best course of action, but maybe not in every case… (Press Gang / Doctor Who crossover).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rainy Day Tales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paranoidangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paranoidangel/gifts).



Lynda was working her way through the rainy day file, screwing up every other sheet of paper as she went. “Kenny!”

“I told you,” Kenny said, from right beside her, causing her to jump, and glare at her assistant editor. “The mad cat lady story’s out. What’s wrong with this one?”

“Kenny, ‘police box stands on street corner’ is not a story!”

“It is when it wasn’t there first thing this morning.”

“What?”

Spike joined them, removing his sunglasses, and giving Lynda a wide grin. “Did I hear my name being taken in vain?”

“No, you didn’t,” said Lynda, “but I can always give you an insult if you want one.”

“What, only the one? Hey, I must be growing on you!”

“You do bring to mind a nasty rash, I suppose…”

Kenny looked across at him, interrupting before they got into full battle mode. “Spike, tell her.”

“That’s amazing – he’s capable of coherent speech?”

“According to our sources, it appeared out of nowhere. Literally – right in front of half the shoppers in the high street.”

Lynda stopped. She looked from Kenny to Spike, and back again, from Spike to Kenny. “Is this some sort of wind up?”

“Scout’s honour, boss. There are people in therapy out there even as we speak.”

“Seriously, Lynda.”

The _Junior Gazette_ ’s fearless editor heaved a sigh. “It’s not a wind up? It just appeared out of nowhere?”

“So they say,” said Spike. “Sounds crazy to me, but a story’s a story, right? And it’s definitely got more zap to it than the thing about the vegetable shortage.”

Lynda folded her arms, and tilted back her head. “That depends,” she said. “Where’s Colin?”

*

“Hey, it was a great trick, and _obviously_ I’m not asking for any professional secrets here – I totally respect all that, but you could use some help on presentation and polishing and – guess what? – I’m your guy!” Colin shouted, while knocking on the door of the mystery blue box. “If you’re lucky enough to talk me into being your agent, we can go anyplace you want with an act like that. I’ll just be looking after the dull stuff. You know, the paperwork, and that. The money, yeah, but only if you insist -.”

“Excuse me,” said a cultured voice from behind him, and Colin turned, ready to tell the rival potential agent that he had got there first when he found himself confronted by what seemed like a giant in a long coat and ridiculous scarf. “You’re standing in front of my TARDIS.”

Colin looked at him. “Hey, this is _your_ box? Great! I was just admiring it. Gotta love the blue theme you’ve got going on and the jokey police thing – what a wag!” He shook his head and gave a laugh.

“Well, I’m rather fond of the old girl, too, but Harry and Sarah and I are in a hurry – planets to save – you know how it is – and you’re blocking the door.”

“This won’t take a moment. Here’s my card. Think it over – give me a call. You won’t regret it. Cross my heart and hope to die. Well, not actually _die_ , of course…”

Then Colin stood aside, given no other option, as the giant entered the police box, closely followed by a dark-haired girl and a guy in a duffel-coat. He inched forward, about to slip in after, when the door slammed in his face.

“Let’s do lunch?” he tried hopefully, as it started to wheeze and groan, and the litter skittered about the street around him in the breeze it was generating. He yelped, and leapt backwards, falling over a passing businessman, who tutted irritably.

The box vanished.

“Brilliant,” said Colin, from where he was left lying on the pavement. “It’s gonna blow the socks off the right audience. So… lunch?”

He halted his patter on recognising a pair of legs opposite him, behind where the box had been standing. Only one person would wear navy tights with that red tartan skirt. He smiled as innocently as he could. “Lynda!”

“Colin,” said Lynda, looking down at him. Spike was standing behind her. “I _knew_ it.”

For once, Colin Mathews found himself lost for words. “B-b-but Lynda -!”

“Get up and stop making a fool of yourself. We’ll find plenty of real stories without you playing conjuring tricks on people. I’ve told you before the only time I want some dodgy UFO story is if it actually lands on the school field with at least a hundred reliable witnesses. Is that too much for your tiny excuse for a brain to understand?”

*

“You don’t think you were too harsh?” asked Spike, leading the way back. He caught himself. “Okay. Dumb question.”

Lynda strode on past him. “I don’t want any silly sensationalism in the _Junior Gazette_. We’ve got enough trouble getting people to take us seriously as it is. If he does anything like that again, I’ll board up his office, confiscate the account books, and then I’ll decapitate him in front of the newsroom.”

“You got to admit one thing, though,” said Spike.

“Have I?”

“It was kind of a neat trick. Wouldn’t you like to know how he pulled it off?”

“As long as he never does it again, I don’t care!”

“You don’t think it would have been a better headline than the cabbage shortage in the supermarket?”

“We’re working on that, okay?”

*

In the Junior Gazette newsroom, Kenny put the receiver down with a dazed look on his face.

“Something wrong?” asked Sam, walking past the desk. “You look like you’ve been yelled at by Lynda, and she’s not even here. Oh. Was that Vampira on the line?”

Kenny swung his swivel chair round. “Sam. It’s not April the 1st, is it?”

“Is this a trick question?”

He stared at the phone again. “That was Sarah. She says a ten foot insect burst into Harriet’s Hats and started eating people.”

“Wow.”

Kenny nodded. “Yes. And some guy in a scarf blew the thing up but she’s got interviews on tape, and if we send Kevin down there, we can get photos of the damage – and maybe the thing itself if we can sneak past the police. She says that one’s probably a job for Spike.”

“That _is_ weird.”

“Do I look as if I’m crazy?”

Sam surveyed him, a little more intently than he had expected. “Not any more than usual. Just kind of worried… Maybe sort of mean and moody. And cute. Nice shirt, by the way.”

“Uh… yeah,” said Kenny, who was never sure what to make of Sam using him for general flirting practice. “What is it with today?”

Sam smiled and sat on his desk. “You’ve got to give him credit, haven’t you?”

“Who?”

“It’s pretty impressive, even for Colin.”

Kenny opened his mouth to say that Colin Mathews couldn’t engineer a fake alien attack at the shopping centre, and then closed it again, realising that _would_ be crazy. “Colin. Yeah. Right. Of course.”

“Who else?” said Sam. “What sort of alien is going to invade Norbridge when they’ve got the whole universe to choose from? I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be.”

Kenny grinned, having an answer for that much: “A dead one with a hat fetish, apparently.”

“Wouldn’t you know?”

“I’d better send Kevin anyway – might need the evidence, and Lynda would never forgive us if we actually got invaded by aliens, and missed it.”

“Not everything revolves around Lynda Day, Kenny.”

He got up from his chair with a smile. “You sure about that? I’m not.”

*

“ _Me_?” said Colin later, when confronted by Lynda, Spike and Kenny on his eventual return to the newsroom, putting his hands to his jacket front in an exaggerated gesture of injured innocence. “How could you even think it? Would I pull off a tasteless stunt like that? Guys, please.”

“I’ll assume that’s a rhetorical question,” said Lynda. “If not, I’ve got a list!”

Colin stared back at them, and eventually, gave in to the pressure of public opinion. He put his hands in his pockets and grinned. “You’ve got to admit – it was a pretty cool trick, wasn’t it? Neat or what?”

“What are we supposed to do with him?” asked Lynda, as Colin headed off towards his cupboard, shaking his head to himself in amusement as he went.

Spike leant back in his chair, and looked up at her, admiring the view. “I don’t know, Boss, but I bet you’ll come up with something unspeakable any time now.”

“In the meantime,” said Lynda, sitting back at her desk, and pulling a face, “we’ve got to turn a vegetable shortage into a front page story.”

Kenny looked up, his eyebrows twisting into a frown. “Hang about – he takes off after faking an alien invasion and a magic disappearing box – and we get the cabbages?”

“That’s life, Kenny.”

“I hear there was a serious lack of carrots, too. And cauliflowers. You should have heard the little kids crying in the aisles when they realised they weren’t going to get their greens tonight.”

It was going to be a long evening, Kenny realised.


End file.
